E. Phillips Oppenheim - 21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series)

Bellamy drew a long breath.

“My God, but this is wonderful!” he muttered. “How long is it since you left the Palace?”

“About ten minutes or a quarter of an hour,” Dorward answered.

“They’ll find it out at once,” declared the other. “They’ll miss the paper. Perhaps he’ll tell them himself that he has given it to you. Don’t let us run any risks, Dorward. Tear it open. Let us know the truth, at any rate. If you have to part with the document, we can remember its contents. Out with it, man, quick! They may be here at any moment.”

Dorward drew a few steps back. Then he shook his head.

“I guess not,” he said firmly.

Bellamy regarded his friend in blank and uncomprehending amazement.

“What do you mean?” he exclaimed. “You’re not going to keep it to yourself? You know what it means to me—to England?”

“Your old country can look after herself pretty well,” Dorward declared. “Anyhow, she’ll have to take her chance. I am not here as a philanthropist. I am an American journalist, and I’ll part to nobody with the biggest thing that’s ever come into any man’s bands.”

Bellamy, with a tremendous effort, maintained his self-control.

“What are you going to do with it?” he asked quickly. “I tell you I’m off out of the country to-night,” Dorward declared. “I shall head for England. Pearce is there himself, and I tell you it will be just the greatest day of my life when I put this packet in his hand. We’ll make New York hum, I can promise you, and Europe too.”

Bellamy’s manner was perfectly quiet—too quiet to be altogether natural. His hand was straying towards his pocket.

“Dorward,” he said, speaking rapidly, and keeping his back to the door, “you don’t realize what you’re up against. This sort of thing is new to you. You haven’t a dog’s chance of leaving Vienna alive with that in your pocket. If you trust yourself in the Orient Express to-night, you’ll never be allowed to cross the frontier. By this time they know that the packet is missing; they know, too, that you are the only man who could have it, whether the Chancellor has told them the truth or not. Open it at once so that we get some good out of it. Then we’ll go round to the Embassy. We can slip out by the back way, perhaps. Remember I have spent my life in the service, and I tell you that there’s no other place in the city where your life is worth a snap of the fingers but at your Embassy or mine. Open the packet, man.”

“I think not,” Dorward answered firmly. “I am an American citizen. I have broken no laws and done no one any harm. If there’s any slaughtering about, I guess they’ll hesitate before they begin with Arthur Dorward…. Don’t be a fool, man!”

He took a quick step backward,—he was looking into the muzzle of Bellamy’s revolver.

“Dorward,” the latter exclaimed, “I can’t help it! Yours is only a personal ambition—I stand for my country. Share the knowledge of that packet with me or I shall shoot.”

“Then shoot and be d—d to you!” Dorward declared fiercely. “This is my show, not yours. You and your country can go to—”

He broke off without finishing his sentence. There was a thunderous knocking at the door. The two men looked at one another for a moment, speechless. Then Bellamy, with a smothered oath, replaced the revolver in his pocket.

“You’ve thrown away our chance,” he said bitterly.

The knocking was repeated. When Bellamy with a shrug of the shoulders answered the summons, three men in plain clothes entered. They saluted Bellamy, but their eyes were traveling around the room.

“We are seeking Herr Dorward, the American journalist!” one exclaimed. “He was here but a moment ago.”

Bellamy pointed to the inner door. He had had too much experience in such matters to attempt any prevarication. The three men crossed the room quickly and Bellamy followed in the rear. He heard a cry of disappointment from the foremost as he opened the door. The inner room was empty!

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Louise looked up eagerly as he entered.

“There is news!” she exclaimed. “I can see it in your face.”

“Yes,” Bellamy answered, “there is news! That is why I have come. Where can we talk?”

She rose to her feet. Before them the open French windows led on to a smooth green lawn. She took his arm.

“Come outside with me,” she said. “I am shut up here because I will not see the doctors whom they send, or any one from the Opera House. An envoy from the Palace has been and I have sent him away.”

“You mean to keep your word, then?”

“Have I ever broken it? Never again will I sing in this City. It is so.”

Bellamy looked around. The garden of the villa was enclosed by high gray stone walls. They were secure here, at least, from eavesdroppers. She rested her fingers lightly upon his arm, holding up the skirts of her loose gown with her other hand.

“I have spoken to you,” he said, “of Dorward, the American journalist.”

She nodded.

“Of course,” she assented. “You told me that the Chancellor had promised him an interview for to-day.”

“Well, he went to the Palace and the Chancellor saw him.”.

She looked at him with upraised eyebrows.

“The newspapers are full of lies as usual, then, I suppose. The latest telegrams say that the Chancellor is dangerously ill.”

“It is quite true,” Bellamy declared. “What I am going to tell you is surprising, but I had it from Dorward himself. When he reached the Palace, the Chancellor was practically insane. His doctors were trying to persuade him to go to his room and lie down, but he heard Dorward’s voice and insisted upon seeing him. The man was mad—on the verge of a collapse—and he handed over to Dorward his notes, and a verbatim report of all that passed at the Palace this morning.”

She looked at him incredulously.

“My dear David!” she exclaimed.

“It is amazing,” he admitted, “but it is the truth. I know it for a fact. The man was absolutely beside himself, he had no idea what he was doing.”

“Where is it?” she asked quickly. “You have seen it?”

“Dorward would not give it up,” he said bitterly. “While we argued in our sitting-room at the hotel the police arrived. Dorward escaped through the bedroom and down the service stairs. He spoke of trying to catch the Orient Express to-night, but I doubt if they will ever let him leave the city.”

“It is wonderful, this,” she murmured softly. “What are you going to do?”

“Louise, you and I have few secrets from each other. I would have killed Dorward to obtain that sealed envelope, because I believe that the knowledge of its contents in London to-day would save us from disaster. To know how far each is pledged, and from which direction the first blow is to come, would be our salvation.”

“I cannot understand,” she said, “why he should have refused to share his knowledge with you. He is an American—it is almost the same thing as being an Englishman. And you are friends,—I am sure that you have helped him often.”

“It was a matter of vanity—simply cursed vanity,” Bellamy answered. “It would have been the greatest journalistic success of modern times for him to have printed that document, word for word, in his paper. He fights for his own hand alone.”

“And you?” she whispered.

“He will have to reckon with me,” Bellamy declared. “I know that he is going to try and leave Vienna to-night, and if he does I shall be at his heels.”

She nodded her head thoughtfully.

“I, too,” she announced. “I come with you, my friend. I do no more good here, and they worry my life out all the time. I come to sing in London at Covent Garden. I have agreements there which only await my signature. We will go together; is it not so?”